Posted about 10 hours agoTue 27 Jan 2015, 4:48am
A resurgence of the Indian myna bird population in Canberra could result from the birds outsmarting the community trapping program.
Canberra's Indian Myna Action Group president Bill Handke said that while the population of Indian mynas had been successfully controlled, the group had been forced to explore new trapping methods.
"We hear more stories now of mynas not going near traps and even, disturbingly, teaching their young not to go near traps," Mr Handke told 666 ABC Canberra.
"I suspect Indian myna birds have worked out traps are bad news."
The Indian myna bird is considered a pest, competing with native wildlife for food and habitat.
"The problems with Indian mynas is that [they] take over the hollows of nesting birds like the rosella and kookaburra and cockatoo," Mr Handke said.
"[They also] drive birds out of gardens and prey on small birds, their chicks, and eggs."
Indian myna numbers spiked in the mid 1990s with the species becoming the third-most common in Canberra.
A backyard trapping program formed in 2006 by the Canberra Myna Bird Action Group drastically reduced the number of the pest species.
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